I was browsing the archives of On Language today and learned something while reading an article entitled Phantonym. Apparently enormity doesn't mean enormous (as I thought it did). It means great wickedness. I'm glad my students didn't know that last week when, referring to the state reading test, I said something like, "Don't be overwhelmed by the enormity of the test because we're going to spread it out over four day." While I, along with many other teachers, believe many of the standardized tests to be a great wickedness, I certainly didn't want my students going into the test with this thought in mind.
Other words I was using incorrectly? - disinterested and fortuitous.
So, though fortuitous, it was a fortunate wandering that led me to this article, for I believe that many teachers miss the enormity of the effect our language misuse has on students (and children in general) and being reminded by someone disinterested in education is a good prompt to reflect on this.
Isn't phantonym a great word? Any others come to mind?
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Nothing specific - just 10,000 of the 15,000 words in my GRE prep book that I never knew existed in the English language!
ReplyDeleteOh I think tests like that definitely try to trick with phantonyms. I'm sure I missed some on my GRE too. At least you'll have some new words to teach Micah :)
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that's what enormity meant! Thank you :)
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